Think you’re getting the fish you ordered? Oh, snapper, not always

A quarter of all fish samples from Metro Vancouver restaurants, sushi bars and stores was of a different species than advertised, the result in some cases of “intentional” fish fraud, according to researchers.

The UBC study, the largest done in Vancouver, shows that governmental changes are needed to stop the fraud, including better labels and ability to track where fish comes from, its lead author, Yaxi Hu said.

“We have a lower rate (of mislabelled fish) compared to some inland cities, but it’s still high, especially because we are a city by the ocean,” Hu said.

Almost all of the fish labelled snapper or red snapper tested by researchers turned out in the lab to be something else, usually tilapia, said Hu, a PhD candidate student in the food nutrition and health program of UBC’s Faculty of Land and Food Systems.

“Tilapia is a much cheaper fish species compared with snappers, indicating intentional substitution for economic gain,” the report said.

Another example of “intentional fraud” was the passing off of sutchi catfish as the more expensive halibut, snapper, sole and cod.

“The replacement of red snapper for albacore tuna and rockfish, as well as snapper by basa was a common fraud,” the report also found. Also common was passing off red-fleshed steelhead trout as salmon.

The researchers randomly collected more than 280 samples between September 2017 and February 2018 from non-sushi restaurants, sushi bars and grocery stores, mostly in the City of Vancouver, because that’s where most of the student researchers lived and attended university, she said.

The restaurant samples were collected through takeout and the researchers always verbally confirmed the type of fish. Samples from grocery stores included fresh fish and processed products.

DNA bar coding was used to identify the more than 240 qualifying samples of fish, according to a list of more than 1,100 species maintained by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Any with DNA sequence that did not match the CFIA list were considered mislabelled.

The researchers are not naming the retail outlets because they obtained samples only once and can’t be sure if it’s an ongoing occurrence or a one-time thing, said Hu.

There were some puzzling substitutions that suggest error, including selling sockeye salmon as the cheaper and less desirable pink salmon, chum as king or sockeye, and in one restaurant expensive black cod, also known as sablefish, being sold as the less expensive true cod, “which is nothing like black cod,” said Hu.

Todd Waterfield, president of Lions Gate Fisheries, a wholesale supplier, said he suspected the majority of errors occurred in kitchens or stores where staff would unpack fish from a labelled box and then forget which was which.

He said suppliers must label all their products and provide customers with what they ordered. And he said facilities are subject to CFIA inspections “all the time.”

“It’s young people working in the back who aren’t educated enough and are just guessing,” he said. “I don’t think it’s intentional.”

“Our industry is all about integrity and if there’s something like that happening, we haven’t seen it,” said Ian Tostenson, president of the B.C. Food and Restaurant Association.

The report noted the fish for some processed products might pass through four or five different countries for harvesting, freezing/fileting/gutting, coating/breading and packaging “so there’s lots of room for mislabelling.”

Dr. Aline Dimitri, the CFIA’s deputy chief food safety officer, said the CFIA is working on a long-term solution to fish fraud, which she called an international problem.

She said there was no timeline for improved oversight. Anyone who suspects they’re being sold something other than what they ordered or bought should file a complaint with the CFIA.

Hu’s lab is developing a portable consumer device to test fish at the store or restaurant.

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